In vitro diagnostics is of growing importance due to the increasing demand for more effective and efficient healthcare. On the one hand, such diagnostic tests are performed in centralized laboratories, hosting a large variety of instruments which are operated by professional technicians and on the other hand, such diagnostic tests are performed in point-of-care settings outside of laboratory environments e.g. in an operation theatre, at the physician's office, at the hospital bedside, in the ambulance or at the patient's home. Point-of-care tests, in addition of being rapid, are required to be sensitive as the testing for certain disease biomarkers require detection to be completed in the range of picomolar concentrations. Using magnetic particles as labels in sandwich immunoassays has been proven to be suitable for this purpose.
For testing outside laboratory environments, it is further essential that the test be compact and robust paired with a high ease of use. Thus, there is a strong need to provide a point-of-care setting that has as few user-aided steps as possible.